lasj

I'll be flying with my wife and daughter JFK-CDG this summer, on the reconfigured AF 777s with reverse-herringbone business class. Both the outbound and return should be midweek flights, either Wednesdays or Thursdays.

I'm choosing evening flights so that she'll sleep, but she's now too old for either of us to comfortable share this kind of seat with her. I can buy her a seat, but I'd love to take advantage of the fact that she's still under 2 and save several thousand dollars.

If I were to just buy two seats, does anyone have a sense of the odds of us being able to put her in an empty J seat anyway? Specifically:
- do these flights tend to go out full in J
- does AF like to upgrade elites into J to fill it up
- would the FAs have a problem with us putting her in her own seat (certainly I've never had a problem in domestic economy, but this may be different)

And in the worst case, if there's no extra seat... could we just leave her in my seat next to my wife while I go sit in economy? I might take that gamble.

ajs123

Summer is typically a low season for J travel but heavy on Y. AF upgrades only when necessary - overbooked Y. With overbooked Y AF is also more likely to offer paid upgrades before and during check-in.

Don't children under 2 get a substantial discount (iirc 90%)?

lasj

Thanks for the advice. It's encouraging that there might be more room in J. If I pick a flight with some lower-level J award seats showing, is that also a good sign that this is a flight that's less likely to fill?

I think if she is a lap infant, she pays only 10%. Otherwise it seems like she pays full fare. I'm not entirely sure because my options are either 0-1 years (without a seat) or 2+ years (with a seat). I can't specify that she's 1 year old but we want a seat for her. When I pick 2+ years, it prices out to the same as the adult fare.

Doc Savage

Dude, your chances of an empty J seat next to you are really, really low.

What you're really trying to do is get a free seat somehow. That's probably not going to happen, even if you try to sneak back to Y and poach a seat there. I'd be pretty pissed off at you if you tried to steal an empty seat next to me just because you didn't want to pay for all the seats you were using. I'd probably ask the FA to send you back to your own seat if you tried it. DEFINITELY not a cool move. Others may be harsher in their disapprobation.

Safe travels,

Doc

KLouis

My kids are now in their mid thirties, still my memory tells me that 0-2 is 10% and 2+ to something is 50%. Has this changed?

lasj

Yeah, I totally see what you're saying. I guess it's just that in all of the many flights I've taken with her as a lap child so far (in economy), there's been an extra seat and I've put her in it. I didn't buy the empty seat, but no one else bought it either. Everyone has seemd happy to let me move into the center next to them and leave my daughter in the aisle (for example).

And in this J configuration (which I've flown on other airlines), it really doesn't matter to me if someone is next to me. I can barely tell.

KLouis: I just checked the fare rules for a bunch of these flights, and it says 100% of fare for children for the cheaper fare classes, and I only saw 75% for the much more expensive ones. I didn't see 50% on any of the fares I checked, in any cabin. I wish though!

orbitmic

Flights on the cdg-jfk route tend to be very full in j, many people choose to fly the new j if they can, plus the planes with BEST (the new seats) are convertible so that af may decide to transform part of the j cabin into an additional mini y cabin instead to match demand.

Also, for safety reasons, crew will not let you put an infant separate from you which further lowers the odds that anything can work out at all in terms of giving your daughter her own seat*.

If you don't care about old/new j, odds are quite a lot higher on an old j cabin: if you take the two aisles of the middle trio towards the back of the cabin, that middle seat in between you is the last anyone would choose and thus has a good chance of being empty and you getting three seats for three people plus zero chance of being told it's a safety issue when toddler is in her seat between her two parents as she would comparatively be very safe in that middle seat.

The 'price' is obvious: the old seats are less comfortable than the new ones. The gain is obvious too: while there is no guarantee, I'd say your chance of the little one getting her actual seat are under 10% with the new seats, over 70% with the old seats...

* As Goldorak rightly mentions, they may also very well refuse you to even put her on a seat next to you because in practice, even with the two middle seats, you cannot really look after her while she sleeps as seats are (successfully) meant to have high privacy.

Goldorak

I fully agree with Orbitmic's assessment. I would also add that with the BEST seat configuration, it will not be easy to check on your child on a nearby seat and I'm pretty sure the crew will not be happy about this. The old seat (NEV4) config is much better for this.
Also, predicting free seats in a flight in several months is really playing poker and I would never play that kind of game flying with a child.

brunos

In the summer, the flights are typically full of tourists. There might be mnay J seats to sell (although that is reduced by quick change on retrofitted planes), but AF will opup pax due to overbooking in Y and staff enjoy travelling to JFK and get get into J.
If there is some empty seat at takeoff, your best strategy is what Goldorak suggests, but it is very far from guaranteed and only applies to non-retrofitted 777s (not A380, 330, 340).
I doubt (and hope) that FAs will not let an infant sit in a solo BEST seta. Maybe they would be OK if it is the adjoining middle seat. Maybe you could book two middle seats and pray for an empty seat in the cabin.

chrisljo

10% is without seat, 2+ is usually (but not always) 75% with own seat.

lasj

Thanks for the advice, everyone!